The Palgrave Handbook of Indicators in Global Governance

542 Pages·2018·8.821 MB·English

by  Debora Valentina Malito, Gaby Umbach, Nehal Bhuta (eds.)

THE PALGRAVE HANDBOOK
OF INDICATORS IN GLOBAL
GOVERNANCE
Edited by Debora Valentina Malito,
Gaby Umbach and Nehal Bhuta
The Palgrave Handbook of Indicators in Global
Governance
“Knowledge was an essential part of the making of the modern State and we judge
governments by measuring and ranking them. Indicators—their collection, applica-
tion, use, and comparison— are hence an essential part of global governance. But
how to measure and compare the worldwide rule of law, integrity, good governance,
stateness, institutional quality, government performance, sustainable development,
or human rights? This groundbreaking, multiperspective and transdisciplinary book
provides all that one needs to explore this new area.”
Sabino Cassese, Professor of Global Law, LUISS Guido Carli University,
former judge of the Italian Constitutional Court and Emeritus Professor at the
Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa
“Malito, Umbach and Bhuta have put together a meticulous account of global gover-
nance indicators. The handbook takes stock of theory and practice of measurement,
highlighting positive contributions and problematic areas for a wide range of gover-
nance aspects. This is an important contribution to the debate, useful to academics in
many disciplines and policymakers alike.”
Antonio Savoia, Lecturer in Development Economics, University of Manchester
Debora Valentina Malito • Gaby Umbach
Nehal Bhuta
Editors
The Palgrave
Handbook of
Indicators in Global
Governance
Editors
Debora Valentina Malito Gaby Umbach
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies
European University Institute European University Institute
San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy
Nehal Bhuta
Law Department
European University Institute
Firenze, Italy
ISBN 978-3-319-62706-9 ISBN 978-3-319-62707-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62707-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017956093
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Preface
This Handbook is the outcome of the “Global Governance by Indicators”
project, convened by the Global Governance Programme (GGP) of the
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, at the European University
Institute (EUI). This project started with three workshops on measuring cor-
ruption, governance, and sustainability held at the EUI, in Florence, between
2013 and 2014. The workshops served as a platform for exchanges between
scholars and practitioners to promote mutual understanding and learning
about the role of indicators in global governance. The idea of writing this
Handbook originated in a conversation we had about the heterogeneity, com-
plexity, discordant, and contrasting orientations in the production and use of
indicators. While observing the extraordinary proliferation of metrics, we
were puzzled by the diffusion of scepticism about the power of indicators in
informing and steering policy debates, as they were perceived as not action-
able enough and their power as highly contextual. Such heterogeneity led us
to collect this multi-perspective and trans-disciplinary range of
contributions.
This Handbook had a long gestation, and as consequences, many debts are
owed. We are grateful to the GGP at the EUI, for funding the “Global
Governance by Indicators” project that made this work possible. Special
thanks are also owed to the staff of the GGP for supporting the project as well
as for managing the organisation of three workshops that led to this Handbook.
The workshops and chapters presented benefited from many valuable com-
ments we received from colleagues and workshop participants. Particular
thanks hence go to Mikai Akech, Matthias Brückner, Sabino Cassese, Mary
Crane-Charef, Cristina Dallara, Kevin Davis, Luis de Sousa, Borbola Garai,
Gustavo García, Julien Desmedt, Bernard Hoekman, David Hulme, Roberto
v
vi Preface
Martínez B. Kukutschka, Martina Kühner, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Carlos
Closa Montero, Timea Pal, Abdullahi Odowa, Richard Rottenburg, Antonio
Savoia, Daniel Schraad-Tischler, Laura Rodriguez Takeuchi, Géraldine Thiry,
and Anna Triandafyllidou.
We would like to express our gratitude to Beth Farrow (Editorial Assistant)
and Jemima Warren (Commissioning Editor in Politics and Public Policy) at
Palgrave, for their support and advice in the final stages of the production
process. Many thanks also go to David Frank Barnes and Francesca Iurlaro for
their assistance in finalising the manuscript.
The editors and publisher thankfully acknowledge the right to re-use mate-
rial that was previously published elsewhere, in particular, the OECD’s per-
mission for Chap. 9 by Guillaume Lafortune, Santiago Gonzalez, and
Zsuzsanna Lonti; the European Commission’s permission for Chap. 10 by
Katia Berti; and the University of Chicago Press’ permission to reprint an
earlier article by Sally Engle Merry as Chap. 21.
Nehal Bhuta, Debora V. Malito, Gaby Umbach
Contents
1 Introduction: Of Numbers and Narratives—Indicators
in Global Governance and the Rise of a Reflexive
Indicator Culture 1
Nehal Bhuta, Debora Valentina Malito, and Gaby Umbach
Part I Conceptualising and Contextualising Indicators as
Instruments of (Global) Governance 31
2 Good Governance: Measuring the Performance
of Governments 33
Robert I. Rotberg
3 How International Rankings Constitute and Limit Our
Understanding of Global Governance Challenges: The Case
of Corruption 49
Alexander Cooley
4 Measuring Governance As If Institutions Matter: A Proposal 69
José Antonio Alonso and Carlos Garcimartín
5 The Creative Disorder of Measuring Governance and Stateness 97
Debora Valentina Malito
vii
viii Contents
6 Sustainability, Sustainability Assessment, and the Place
of Fiscal Sustainability 139
Paul Burger
7 Measuring Governance: Revisiting the Uses of Corruption
and Transparency Indicators 161
Robert P. Beschel Jr
Part II Making Measures 181
8 Understanding Governance and Corruption Using Survey
Data: A Novel Approach and Its Applications in Policy
and Research 183
Francesca Recanatini
9 Government at a Glance: A Dashboard Approach to Indicators 207
Guillaume Lafortune, Santiago Gonzalez, and Zsuzsanna Lonti
10 The European Commission’s Fiscal Sustainability
Indicators and Their Use in the EU’s Integrated Cycle
of Economic Policy Coordination 239
Katia Berti
11 Measuring the Rule of Law: The World Justice Project’s
Rule of Law Index 255
Alyssa Dougherty, Amy Gryskiewicz, and Alejandro Ponce
12 Measuring the Opposite of Corruption: The Evolution
of Governance Indicators at Global Integrity 277
Hazel Feigenblatt and Johannes Tonn
13 D eveloping an Indicator of Fiscal Sustainability for Africa 299
Moses Obinyeluaku
14 M oving Beyond Traditional Indicators of Fiscal Sustainability:
Examples from Locally Chosen Indicators 325
Daphne T. Greenwood
Conten ts ix
Part III A pplying Measures: The Use and the Impact of Indicators
as Instruments of (Global) Governance 349
15 Corruption Indicators in Local Political Landscapes:
Reflections from Albania 351
Smoki Musaraj
16 Activism Through Numbers? The Corruption
Perception Index and the Use of Indicators by Civil
Society Organisations 371
René Urueña
17 Measuring Corruption in India: Work in Slow Progress 389
T. R. Raghunandan
18 Ranking Countries for Good Governance Using Public
Opinion Surveys 407
Maksym Ivanyna and Anwar Shah
19 Analysing the Use of Sustainability Indicators 431
Stephen Morse
20 Sustainability of Public Debt: A Dangerous Obsession? 449
Christophe Blot
21 Measuring the World: Indicators, Human Rights, and 
Global Governance 477
Sally Engle Merry
22 Conclusions: Knowing and Governing 503
Debora Valentina Malito, Nehal Bhuta, and Gaby Umbach
Index 513
Notes on Editors and Contributors
Editors
Nehal Bhuta is a Professor of Public International Law at the EUI. He is also
the Co-Director of the GGP’s “Global Governance by Indicators” project. He
is a member of the editorial boards of the European Journal of International
Law, the Journal of International Criminal Justice, Constellations, and Humanity.
He edits, with Anthony Pagden and Benjamin Straumann, the Oxford
University Press series in the History and Theory of International Law. He
came to the EUI from the New School for Social Research, and before that,
he taught at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. Before entering aca-
demia, he worked with Human Rights Watch and the International Center
for Transitional Justice.
Debora Valentina Malito is an A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow
at the University of Cape Town. She has been a research associate at GGP
(Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies) of the EUI. She holds a PhD
in Political Studies from the University of Milan. Her research interests focus
on critical studies of liberal interventionism, state building, and governance.
Her publications have appeared in International Peacekeeping, Third World
Quarterly, Peace Review. She is working on the impact and legitimacy of the
UN-NATO intervention in Libya.
Gaby Umbach is Director of “GlobalStat—Globalisation Database” and the
Co-Director of the GGP’s “Global Governance by Indicators” project. She
holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cologne. Since 2015,
she serves as a book review editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies and
xi